Riders roll out from Conwy beneath the castle walls, knowing the same cyneddin - that sense of belonging, will greet them at the end. A sweep along the North Wales coast and across Anglesey leads to Holyhead, where the first ferry carries them west across the Irish Sea — the same crossing once taken by Druids seeking refuge.

Ireland begins in Dublin’s docks, before the route slips quickly into quieter lanes and turns north toward the Mourne Mountains. Forested climbs, moorland passes and a fast drop back to the sea open the way to the Antrim Coast: a spectacular run of cliffs, coves and headlands, including the wild drama of Torr Road and the basalt country around the Giant’s Causeway.

Beyond Derry, Donegal’s emptiness takes over — open bogs, steep-sided glens and the twisting descent of Glengesh. The route follows the Atlantic edge through fishing towns and mountain-shadowed bays, then south into Sligo and Mayo’s deep glacier-carved valleys. Connemara brings stone walls, island-dotted seascapes and some of the most atmospheric roads in the west. One checkpoint will stand somewhere out here, at the far reaches of the island.

The return east sweeps through Limerick’s hinterlands and into the Midlands, cutting across old railway paths, quiet villages and the soft, rolling farmland that leads toward the Slieve Bloom Mountains. These give the inland high point of the journey — a run over The Cut and down through wooded valleys before the landscape eases toward Kildare.

Wicklow delivers the final act: long climbs, open ridges and the sweeping passage of the Wicklow Gap, dropping riders into the monastic valley of Glendalough before the line curves back toward Dublin. A second ferry returns everyone to Holyhead and the final miles: Anglesey’s lanes, the Menai, the foothills of Snowdonia and the last pull over Sychnant Pass.

The loop closes where it began, at Conwy — a journey that crosses seas, mountains and mythic ground, tracing the old route of the Druids not in flight, but in pursuit of connection, endurance and renewal.